


To God

by HomesickAlien



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, no dialogue (sorry), this ended up more like a character study than a ship fic.... my bad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-09 05:33:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13474713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HomesickAlien/pseuds/HomesickAlien
Summary: Shu never knows what to do, when Nazuna's hands are so soft and his hands are stained with mud.





	To God

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently, it was Nito Day (2/10) a couple days ago. I wanted to write a fic for my precious boy, but I've been pretty busy. This turned out pretty good, though. I admit, I think about the day shu and nazuna held hands in canon every single day of my life.

The first time, it came as a surprise to him.

It wasn’t long, not at all. Just a brush of their hands as they walked together, side by side. The gentlest of all touches, the kind that comes unexpectedly and leaves without commentary. But, whether he says it or not, he can still feel the tinge of numbness floating over his knuckles. It’s both pleasurable and infuriating, and all the awkward thoughts floating about in his head would only serve to spoil the moment.

_I want to hold your hand._

He’s too prideful to say it out loud, but the thought follows him down the stairs of their school, all through the curves and turns of the roads leading home, and even all the way to the front steps of his doorway. _I want to hold your hand. I want to hold your hand. I want to-_ He wonders where exactly he and Nito even stand. They’re neither friends nor partners, yet they perform as such regardless of who’s eyes fall on them. In school, on the stage, and at home; it’s ultimately all the same for idols. Everywhere they go, their perfect image is tested, yet Nito never shares an interest in him.

Rather, he’s quiet about it. He keeps all his love to himself, and Shuu gives it away with twice as much valor. Shuu is a kind person, that much Nito believes, so he follows behind him, in the shadows of perfect stages like an Angel too divine for human eyes. That is simply something Shuu is torn about, never wanting to share this precious thing he’s unraveled, yet wanting to shout out his adoration like Gospel to everyone he passes.

Infatuation is what Nito calls it. Love is what Shuu calls it.

But it strikes him in the most subdued manner, when he asks Nito to stay with him a little longer. Just to see if he could build up the confidence to ask Nito himself, to hold his hands. And maybe something more than that, or maybe something less, he would work it out as he goes. If he ever came round in the first place; he never does.

It’s still special to him, to spend more time with Nito. To try and unravel the mysterious person he’d stumbled upon by sheer chance, he would do anything to understand what it is Nito spends his idle time thinking of. He never thinks to just ask him, that would be too simple, and too immature of him. Too unsightly. He prays to God to give him knowledge, but never to give him the strength to ask _how are you_.

At this age, it would be impossible for him to have such forethought to know he were stepping off all the wrong stones in falling in love. How could he know any better, after all, that the only person he’d ever loved prior is already long gone and buried away without ever hearing his feelings for her. This is all he has, now, but how he wish he would have known something more. Anything more. Even in the present year, he feels he knows so little, but he can be so critical for the unknown.

Night comes swiftly to them, but he never learns how to say it. How to ask, _can I hold your hand?_ He doesn’t even learn it in three years, but Nito is still here with him. Nito would always be here with him, that’s what he’d thought as a child. Ignorant, blissfully ignorant, but even if he can’t do something so simple as ask for Nito’s hand, he can still take pleasure in the little things. How quick Nito is to feel drowsy, falling over in Shuu’s bed long before Shuu feels an inkling of desire to sleep. It doesn’t matter how he feels, when his little rabbit is curled up so cutely in his sheets, that he feels obliged to stop for the night and bring peace to both their minds.

The most endearing face of Nito’s is in his dreams. They must be much more wonderful than Shuu can ever offer him, but Shuu can’t let go. He can’t let go of something so beautiful, so perfect, that all he knows how to survive is to simply reiterate it over and over again. If he loves him strongly enough, if he loves him passionately enough, would it be enough for Nito to find happiness?

Shuu could wait through an eternity of Hell if Nito would stay with him just a moment longer in bliss. That’s how he’d always reasoned it, he thinks.

 

The second comes unexpectedly, and abruptly, and ends far too soon.

Admittedly, that’s the same way he’d describe the first time, and yet it feels entirely different in practice. Shuu’s begun to be so attuned to the nuance of synonyms in the presence of Nito. He’s starting to feel that both infatuation and love miscategorize the feelings in his heart, when Nito holds his hand.

He’s only doing it to drag him along outside, of course. To be together as a unit, as a family, and he can’t deny his dolls that much pleasure in this short life they experience together equally. It’s that precious smile, that laugh, that really sells him, though. That makes him wish this moment in their lives together would never, ever come to an end. This time they’re sharing as three, he couldn’t see his Valkyrie under any other light after that day. Kagehira Mika, and Nito Nazuna, the two of them are works of art Shuu only wants to show the world to. Perfectly, show their best sides amplified within each others presence, they compliment each other the way green compliments red.

One without the other, it simply wouldn’t do. He’s only ever seen Nito’s smile this much in the presence of the one he treats as a little brother. That may be the only thing Nito’s ever desired in this life, siblings. Or just a family in general, not that he’s at a lack for one. He’s simply always been passionate in that manner, for his juniors, his children. Even without a voice, he can smile as he shows Mika in obscure ways how to do new things. How to properly give out tickets and entice fans, Nito has a special talent for achieving no matter the limitations set before him. It’s quite inspiring, to Shuu, he wonders if he’s made a mistake or if he’s gifted Nito with a special talent more useful than any song or dance.

It’s odd for Shuu to second guess himself. He’s never once done it before, questioning his wisdom he’s barely earned. He is still young enough to feel he’s on top of the world, that he knows it all at age seventeen if only for the angst that overwhelms him. He hasn’t experienced anything, yet. Nothing at all.

But he’s experienced something very special, when the day winds down to an end, and Nito is handing their near empty box back to Shuu. There’s a rather specific number of tickets left in it, just as always, Nito is needlessly considerate about the little details Mika and Shuu think little of. About their families, their parents and siblings, who might like to see their shows, too. The results are always the same, Shuu’s family is vehemently against it, and Mika’s are simply too far away. Nito’s family always supports them, even if they aren’t fond of Shuu, and Shuu supposes that’s what makes it so special to Nito to try every time, regardless.

It’s the softest look he’s ever seen over his dearest Nito’s face. It’s the most pure expression of happiness they’ve ever felt together, that they ever will experience together. And just for a moment, Shuu loses his grip. He thinks, just for a moment, Nito is not his doll at all. He’s just like him, feeling frivolous feelings that mount to nothing at all, that will only let Nito down in the end. It pains Shuu in a way he’s never known prior, a feeling of anxiety washed over his perfect stage. His perfect gathering of people, _ah,_ what a loathsome word. Of people. Of people. People could never be perfect yet the things he feels for Nito are just that. Perfection, for another person, it rattles his brain entirely until he feels he might very well lose his mind.

That’s when the feeling of touch returns to him. One of Nito’s hand, and one of Kagehira’s. How unnecessary to two of them always are, that one without the other is simply lacking in something significant he can’t place with words.

He’s not certain at all, the meanings of words just seem so lost on him. To touch and feel each others skin, the fabric stretched out over his hands, they speak louder to his mind than his elegant speech can elaborate upon. It’s the quietest Shuu’s ever been.

 

It’s not the third time, or the fourth, or even the fiftieth time now that Nito’s reached out to Shuu. He’s lost count, in fact, to where this time stands in his life, but since it is their third year shared together, Shuu counts it to number three.

Nito’s such a busybody, interfering in their everyday lives as though it’s the most normal thing for him to do. Shuu had thought it best to let it be as it were, to never see Nito’s face again, but Nito is always the first to show himself. He wonders how torn Nito is, himself; if Nito had made such a life altering decision without thinking for even a second whether or not he’d regret it. He wonders if it’s regret Nito feels at all, or just longing to return to that single, flippant moment of happiness in their lives once more.

He’d offered to help them out of his own volition, as always, abandoning his own work with his precious unit Ra*bits to contribute to broadcasting Shuu’s stage, Valkyrie’s stage. The underground stage is certainly a poor one, with so little to offer in the ways of equipment, but Nito seems almost more at home fiddling with such needlessly complex things. His smile radiates the most when he’s hovering over soundboards and switches, and maybe that’s his greatest fear in life. Not that he’d fall back in with Valkyrie, but that he doesn’t want to fall too deep for Ra*bits. Their time together is so close to ending, just like that, and maybe Nazuna Nito had never desired to be an idol at all.

That had been Shuu’s doing, and even the choice to broadcast events to the world had been influenced by him. How odd life connects the two of them, constantly, that even Nito’s most basic decisions made in a day always come back around to his first love. His first real friend.

Firsts to five hundredth, eventually they all bleed together, and when they’re old they might forget entirely even the other’s name. That wouldn’t bother Nito at all, he’s certain, it’s his passion for his family that keeps him moving forward. New or old, it doesn’t matter much in the end, they’ll always hold onto that tiny little piece of each other until death. It’s like an unspoken marriage, a warm and endearing feeling that doesn’t need further explanation.

Shuu never does learn how to ask, _can I hold your hand_ , but he does gather the courage to reach out and feather a touch over Nito’s when trying to understand this thing Nito loves so dearly. The sounds he’s producing, that Shuu never could. How odd it is to see their roles flipped so extravagantly, that it would be Nito saving Shuu, producing the stages Shuu’s dreamed of, but not acting on them as Shuu desires most. It always seems to end this way, that all he loves is dying, but that’s not the case at all. Nito makes it clear, in his eyes, his determination to let Valkyrie shine the way they ought to have all that time ago. The things they love are changing, they’re transitioning from children to adults, thinking this time, for certain, they know everything there is to know about this world.

They’re certainly wrong, but neither of them care at all. This smile, this laughter, this knowledge they have to share with each other as leaders moving on from their school days… Is so precious, Shuu can’t seem to let go of Nito’s hand. Things are changing for the better, he thinks, and maybe there won’t be anything for him to run away from after this.

**Author's Note:**

> comment please (pretty please?)


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